To Fight Or Not To Fight
by Yodes
Summary: A little insight into Alec's head after Freak Nation. *M/A suggestions*


**_Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with Dark Angel, yada, yada, yada.  Please, do NOT sue me._**

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**_A/N: I just wrote this in about 10 minutes.  Don't know why I did it but here ya go.  Feel free to review._**

**_Oh, and check out http://sorrow.hyperboards.com/index.cgi _It's___ a really good __board._**

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**_Summery: A short insight into Alec's head after Freak Nation._**

**_Type: Angst/Romance (kinda)_**

**_Rating: PG? I don't know!_**

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**To Fight Or Not To Fight**

He'd read some Shakespeare once.  They'd wanted him to become an English teacher for a mission.  Infiltrate the target's university, find out what she knew and report back.  Manticore thought she knew too much so he was ordered to terminate her.  She was only 20 but she was a threat.  That's what they said anyway.  So 494 had been given the entire works of Shakespeare to read and some other books that were just plain boring.  Shakespeare was his favourite.  He made little things into big things and big things into something strange and captivating.  The way he used words kept 494 reading the book long after he'd read it once.  But hey, he'd still had a couple of hours of spare reading time left.  The girl was a good student, 494 had to admit that.  But she was a journalist, and she was getting too close.  She died quickly, hardly any struggle at all as he killed her with a wire around the neck in much the same way as he would later kill Simon Lehane.  But 494 wouldn't know that until a couple of months later.  He didn't know that every life he took would come back to haunt him and fill him with guilt for years to come.  He didn't know that he was gonna wake up one day and realise that he had a conscience that made him want to do the right thing and help the people that needed him, not just to please somebody, but because it was the 'right' thing to do.

494 wouldn't realise what was happening to him until he woke up one day in a place called Terminal City, surrounded by other soldiers and people he called his friends.  The thing is, by then 494 was no longer 494 but someone named Alec who was cocky, smart and the Second in Command of an entire nation of people- the soldiers he considered his friends.  On the day he woke up and it hit him, he suddenly realised that he was respected.  He was more than a number, he was more than a soldier raised to kill.  Alec was_ somebody.  He was a leader, a hero to some, and to those that knew him well, he was Alec- a not so lost cause with a haunted past that was sometimes reflected in his eyes.  _

_"I'm always alright"_ that was what he told her when she showed something other than annoyance.  But she knew better.  He knew that her opinion of him had changed when she found out that he'd loved and lost.  When she found out that he had a heart and he had loved something other than himself and had it ripped brutally away from him.  He could see it in her eyes, that look on understanding, even when she covered it up with annoyance and anger.  

Alec could make her angry like no one else could.  He got under her skin and she got under his.  He knew now, that when he walked into that cell back at the hell he had once called home, she'd touched something in him and it had sealed his fate.

_'A glooming piece this morning_

_with__ it brings;_

_The sun for sorrow will not show his head'_

Alec stood on a roof top in Terminal City, looking at the flag that his friend Joshua had made for them.  He saw Max down below, Logan not far away as usual.  They had been holding hands when they raised the flag.  He'd caught her eyes when they turned to leave.  He knew what she was offering in that look.  They'd grown closer since she'd told him of her own demons.  So close, he'd never thought it possible.  Max was their leader, _his leader, his best friend.  And she was challenging him with that look.  They'd reached a point in their relationship and Alec had pulled back.  Too scared of where it would take them if they took the final step.  Because of that, she'd gone back to the human.  But the offer was there.  Now all he had to do was fight his own demons and make a choice.  To fight or not to fight, that was the question.  Should he fight for her?  Alec thought about Shakespeare.  Every word had another meaning, just like their relationship.  Every turn in the plot had a consequence.  There wasn't always a happy ending, but Alec knew that it was something worth finding out._

As if sensing his gaze, Max looked up and smiled at him.  Alec smiled back.  To fight or not to fight? He knew what his answer was going to be.


End file.
